Self-publishing is now a real choice. Partly as a result of technological change, small offset print-runs are within the means of many individuals and local groups. Most commercial publishers are not very profitable these days and so, straightjacketed by their overheads, they are not very efficient, and are often extremely cautious. Many of them have inflexible selling policies. ‘We can’t supply small orders.’ ‘We can’t sell direct to the public.’ ‘We can’t publish for Victoria only,’ let alone for Ballarat.

Self-publishers can break all these rules and succeed providing they have a book some people want badly enough to pay for, and as long as they are prepared to work hard at getting that book into the readers’ hands.

Bill Hornadge, writer and self-publisher of nearly twenty books, has produced an excellent guide to the game. It covers quite specifically almost every aspect of publishing, from making the decision to do it, how to work out a retail price, through to choosing a suitable means of distribution and ways of promoting the book. It is full of sensible advice and illuminating anecdotes. The only weakness I could spot was a lack of emphasis on design – how to make a book look professional and like something people will actually want to read

How To Publish Your Own Book deserves to be widely recommended – not only for self-publishers, but for publishing co-operatives, for people mad enough to be setting up new commercial publishing houses, and for authors – who seem to me to be often incredibly ignorant of publishing processes and thus ill-equipped to demand a better go.